The U.S. Census Bureau released its Merchandise Trade data numbers on August 11th for June 2010. The Merchandise Trade balance increased 54.1% over last June and 22.9% from the previous month. Imports grew by 8.4% from May and gained 33.0% over last year, while exports rose 1.4% from the previous month and increased 23.2% over June 2009.

Below is an in-depth breakdown of the U.S. Census Merchandise Trade data released last week. This month we have highlighted 5 interesting items that we found while looking at June's data; here are the highlights:

1. How shipments arrive indicates new trade trends
2. Extreme temperatures may lead to gains in U.S. wheat exports
3. Air exports show the seasonality of trade
4. Impact of Obama’s signing law to suspend some import duties
5. Evolving Harmonized System doesn’t react fast enough to new technologies
   

Click here for Zepol's U.S. Census Merchandise Trade Data Update for June 2010

On August 9th, we completed the data for July in our U.S. Customs trade data tool, TradeIQ. With a 0.19% decrease in total shipments during the month, July ends the trend of increasing import shipments witnessed in the previous five months. Though this July's numbers failed to overtake June, we can still see a 15.52% increase over July of the previous year, indicating that 2010 import activity is rebounding from its weak numbers in 2009.

Below is a table showing port regions of the world where shipments originated:

As evidenced in the chart above, shipments from Asia decreased slightly from June, but grew 19.19% over July 2009. A look at July shipments from Asia in previous years shows us that July 2009 shipments marked a significant low time and July 2010 is a return to the strong numbers seen in July 2007 and 2008.

Below is a graph of Asia's historical July shipments, starting with July 2005:

 

The collection methods used by U.S. Customs for AMS data can lead to an overstatement of shipments for some ports, as imports and exports from Prince Rupert and Vancouver are often recorded as imports for the U.S. Moreover, the data includes shipments from empty containers, may overstate totals from transshipments, and may contain other data anomalies as well.

Zepol's U.S. Customs trade data is derived from Bills of Lading entered into the Automated Manifest System. This information represents the number of House manifests entered by importers of waterborne containerized goods. This indicator is the earliest data available for the previous month’s trade activity.

Mortgage rates dropped to a new low today, with a 4.49 percent average for 30-year fixed loans for the week compared to 4.52 percent from last week. These falling rates underscore the reality that despite attempts by the governement to boost the market, buyers are still cautious. The lack of activity in home purchases has caused a domino effect leading to decreased need for new construction and consequently, lagging demand for all the supplies that are used in building new homes.

Stone tile (HTS: 6902.10) is one of the many supplies used in new construction, and as demonstrated by the graph below, tile imports are still considerably low compared to pre-2008:

  

Apparently oil spill woes are not confined to the Gulf region this summer. On Monday, a burst pipeline near China’s Dalian port triggered a major offshore oil spill which necessitated closing the Port of Dalian.

Thankfully, no one was injured in the explosion, but it is estimated that the port could stay closed for 7 – 10 days. In light of this news, we thought we'd take a look at the United States' historical trading activity with this Chinese port.

Over the time period from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010, the Port of Dalian shipped 159,866 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) to the United States. The graph below shows which U.S. ports received these shipments.